Scarlett Johansson Left 'Shocked, Angered' After Hearing OpenAI's Voice Sounds Uncannily Like Her

Actor Scarlett Johansson revealed that she declined OpenAI's request to use her voice for a conversational ChatGPT system. She expressed being "shocked" and "angered" when the company proceeded to use a voice that sounded very similar to hers despite her refusal. Earlier in the day, OpenAI announced it would stop using the voice but did not explain why.

 In a statement to Variety, Johansson said her lawyers contacted OpenAI to have the voice of Sky, one of the new voices in the GPT-4o chatbot, removed. "Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system. He told me that he felt that by my voicing the system, I could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives and help consumers to feel comfortable with the seismic shift concerning humans and AI. He said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people," Johansson wrote in a statement shared with NBC News.

After this, OpenAI followed with their statement saying, "We believe that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity’s distinctive voice — Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice." 

 The Sky voice in a demo of GPT-4o surprisingly sounded remarkably similar to Johansson’s AI companion in Spike Jonze’s 2013 movie Her. Johansson shared that in September 2023, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reached out to her about providing the voice for ChatGPT 4.0.

She declined it citing "personal reasons." "When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered, and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference," Johansson said.

"Mr. Altman even insinuated that the similarity was intentional, tweeting a single word ‘her’ — a reference to the film in which I voiced a chat system, Samantha, who forms an intimate relationship with a human," the actor explained.

Revealing her reasons she further stated, "In a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities, I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity. I look forward to resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected."

OpenAI later generated a statement clarifying, "The voice of Sky is not Scarlett Johansson’s, and it was never intended to resemble hers. We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson. Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have paused using Sky’s voice in our products. We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn’t communicate better."